State officials look commonwealth's drug problem in the eye

On Wednesday, Department of Public Health Commissioner Cheryl Bartlett and other state officials pulled back the mask on the drug problem in Massachusetts, appearing at the first meeting of a special state Senate task force looking at the commonwealth’s struggles to keep up with a steep rise in addiction.

BOSTON – In the hubbub of summer, it can be easy to miss Nantucket’s drug problem, according to Department of Public Health Commissioner Cheryl Bartlett.

“As a front-line HIV/AIDS nurse on Nantucket when HIV/AIDS first captured our national attention, I saw firsthand the devastation of substance abuse,” said Bartlett, who now lives in Hyannis but worked for many years on the island. “Sometimes, challenges are masked by some tourists who are quite wealthy.”

On Wednesday, Bartlett and other state officials pulled back the mask on the drug problem faced not just by Nantucket but all of Massachusetts, appearing at the first meeting of a special state Senate task force looking at the commonwealth’s struggles to keep up with a steep rise in addiction.

Created last month, the six-member task force is charged with studying addiction and the state’s treatment options. The panel is focusing on Section 35, a provision in state law allowing the court system to hold addicts in treatment for up to 90 days. Some of the placements are “civil commitments,” in which addicts who do not have current criminal cases or pending prison sentences.

In a three-hour hearing at the Statehouse auditorium, officials from the state’s court, prison and public health systems presented staggering statistics to illustrate the dramatic uptick in drug use, and the increase in Section 35 placements, particularly civil commitments, that have followed.

The DPH pays for and licenses two facilities dedicated to civil commitments – 108 beds for men in Brockton and 90 for women in New Bedford. But when those are full, courts commit women to MCI-Framingham, a medium-security state prison, and men to the minimum-security Massachusetts Alcohol and Substance Abuse Center in Bridgewater.

The Department of Correction has taken on nearly 40 percent of the more than 5,000 civil commitments statewide in recent years, said Luis Spencer, commissioner of the state Department of Correction.

In fiscal year 2012, there were 1,536 men sent to Bridgewater and 296 women sent to MCI-Framingham, meaning the Department of Correction handled 37 percent of civil commitments, Spencer said. That share rose to 39 percent last year.

The spillover has created an overcrowding problem, he said. MCI-Framingham has a total population of 672 now – 220 more women than it was designed to hold, he said. He did not say how many civil commitments there were currently at MCI-Framingham but said they have increased nearly six-fold, from 41 in 2008 to 286 in 2013.

The correction system, he said, is not necessarily equipped for intense detoxification, psychiatric help and specialized care that addiction treatment demands.

The prison system offers recovery and substance abuse-related programs but is “not an alcohol and substance abuse treatment facility for those held only as civil commitments,” he said.

“These people are fathers, they are mothers, and they are sons and daughters, relatives and neighbors, who need help,” Spencer told the senators. “They require comprehensive services and support, which can and should be provided in a noncustodial setting – rather than in a correctional setting.”

Plymouth District Judge Rosemary Minehan said she has seen a parent in her courtroom rip up a Section 35 petition after learning that an addicted child would be committed to a prison for lack of beds elsewhere.

With a shortage of clinicians to evaluate them, Minehan said some addicts are jailed when they need treatment, raising the risk of a seizure from withdrawal to drugs or alcohol.

Speaking later with an official from the state Department of Mental Health, Sen. Jennifer Flanagan, D-Leominster, chairwoman of the drug task force, speculated that the agency’s budget has not been increased to bring on more clinicians. Flanagan said after the hearing that short-term solutions could include more funding and the accreditation of sober homes, which she said are currently not licensed.

“You shouldn’t have to go to the court to seek treatment for addiction,” she said. “You wouldn’t go to court to seek treatment for any other disease. Why addiction?”